Asking Questions To Improve Fleet Risk Management
The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves. That’s what I’ve been told! Voltaire claimed that we should “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers”. Fleet risk management involves a wide range of activities that often span a number of roles within an organisation. There are many operational pressures that compete with fleet risk management for your attention. How can these issues be juggled? Here are 10 questions that fleet risk managers can ask themselves with a view to improving their effectiveness.
Carpe Diem
- Did I do everything I could today to keep my drivers and vehicles in one piece tomorrow?
- Driving is possibly the highest risk activity involved in your business.
- Tomorrow is not as likely to throw fleet and driver challenges at you if you’ve taken all the action you can take today.
- Please read on for some tips on getting more out of your day.
Asking For Help
- Who could have helped me to improve my fleet safety efforts today if I had only asked?
- There are plenty of people out there to help you with your fleet risk management challenges. They are only a phone call or email away.
- Successful risk managers leverage their responsibilities by asking for help.
- It’s often said that we are the sum of the five people we hang around with most. If you have fleet risk management duties, find some peers with fleet risk management experience to swap ideas with.
Three Key Steps
- What are the three major improvements that I can make to improve fleet safety in the last 30 days?
- Time is precious and there are always operational pressures to take the attention away from fleet risk management activities.
- By dealing head on with those issues that need to be handled, you’ll be more effective and satisfied in your role.
- You’ll also be reducing the potential for an accident on the road.
Delivering More
- How can I deliver more assistance to employees who drive for work purposes?
- Can you increase the number of times you communicate with your colleagues who drive for work?
- Increasing the communication between managers and drivers is an easy and cost effective activity that raises the profile of fleet safety in the mind of the driver.
- It really does reduce the collision frequency of a vehicle fleet.
Self Denial
- If I could change one thing that is holding back my ability to better manage driving at work activities, what would that be?
- This is a tough question because denial is an easy thing to get into. Don’t settle for anything less than success. The alternative is damaged vehicles and the potential for injured people.
- Self development is key and investment in your own knowledge and skills to enable you to better manage driving at work activities is crucial to improving the performance of your fleet.
Set Goals
- If there is one fleet risk management goal I need to meet in the next 90 days, what would it be?
- Get serious on one overarching goal.
- It could be to investigate each vehicle collision, it could be to improve reporting times of collisions to insurers, it could be to use data from telematics systems to proactively manage driving performance.
- Take control!
Increased Effectiveness
- How do I increase the efficacy of my fleet risk management initiatives?
- Getting better at what you do is only going to reduce the potential for vehicle collisions and reduce the potential for personal injury in accidents.
- Fleet risk management often falls between a number of roles. A team approach is therefore required.
- Your business needs to develop a Driving At Work Policy that identifies who is responsible for what.
- When it comes to managing driving at work activities, someone in the organisation needs to show leadership.
Effective Teamwork
- How do I create more time for my colleagues who are managing driving for work purposes?
- Help your colleagues prioritise their work in respect of managing occupational road risk. Look at those colleagues who always say yes. They may be the ones who are overworked and stressed.
- Think about using a time audit to show your team where their time is going.
- Then help your team get better at planning the time they are spending on fleet risk management.
Time Management
- What is the best use of my time in respect of managing occupational road risk?
- The best way to start is to plan what should be achieved each day. The plan should prioritise tasks and split them up into manageable chunks. Remember the priorities you may have identified by answering the previous questions.
- If there is a task you really don’t want to do, just work on it for 10 minutes to get it started. You’ll feel better for it and if you take 10 minutes on it each day you’ll soon get it finished.
- Don’t forget to plan your tasks for the next day so you can hit the ground running when you get into work.
- Try time management tools such as the Pomodoro Technique.
Successful Delegation
- Is there an activity that is taking up my time that could be completed by a colleague?
- Delegation needs thought, think about what you are delegating and why. Are you delegating to move work to someone else or to develop them? Hand over those tasks that are stopping you reach your maximum potential in respect of managing drivers performance.
- Be clear on the activity that is being delegated and be clear that all parties will get something out of the activity. Be prepared to give clear outcomes and training on how to reach those outcomes.
- Don’t forget to give feedback on the delivery of that delegated work.
I’m sure there are plenty of other questions that are just as relevant. We hope that these questions have been thought provoking.
